WoW BC Classic: Streamer sniped, banned and got no sympathy
For most MMOs, streamers are a double-edged sword. On the one hand they promote the game, on the other hand they are sometimes not very popular with the players. This is less due to the actions of the streamer themselves and more to the influence they can have on a server and the community. That’s why the big streamers in WoW have to deal with “stream sniping” again and again. Players organize themselves and target the streamers to the spirit healer to reduce their gaming experience and maybe even get them to leave their own server.
Is that also the reason? of reddit user Outrageous_Ad4139 and his little guild, he did not reveal, but that they deliberately knocked down a streamer on the BC Classic server Venoxis – a “well known guy on our realm, that we immediately killed”. The result was so the user wrote furtherthat both he and his entire guild (consisting of ten players) received an 81-day ban.
No sympathy from the community
If the post should arouse pity about the ban, which he believes is of course completely unjustified, the alleged stream sniper had had false hopes. The vast majority of the remaining users agreed more or less unreservedly with Blizzard and the suspensions. Of course, it helped that you can see a user’s previous posts on reddit – and they quickly clarified that it wasn’t the first “not quite perfect action” by the player in question.
You could read about toxic, ironic comments and several bans. The actual texts were deleted – but the comments below show that at least parts of the community were not necessarily on the side of the affected player at the time: “Stop being a toxic dick and you won’t get banned.”
Stream Sniping – yes, no, it depends?
Despite the many accusatory voices, Outrageous_Ad4139 still claims to be right and even posted an old screenshot in which a GM clarified that stream sniping does not violate the ToS. On the other hand, he also posted a picture of his conversation with a GM, who made it very clear that this is exactly why he received his ban. So what is correct now?
Of course, we are not experts in ToS design and can give you a perfect answer. Assuming both screenshots are real (which is not necessarily the case with Reddit posts), there could well be some time between them. As a reminder, recently all retail players had to confirm a “social contract” upon login. In it they pledged, to put it bluntly, to play friendly and fair. In plain English: Don’t be an ass!
This suggests that Blizzard sees such things much more closely today than it did a few years ago. Because not only is toxicity a growing concern, streamers are also becoming more important for games. In addition, the history of the player in question does not necessarily mean that he just sent the streamer to the spirit healer in passing. It would probably not be leaning far out of the window if you assumed that the action was more reminiscent of ganking. But of course that remains unproven.
WoW BC Classic: Streamer sniped, banned and got no sympathy
Source: buffed
My opinion: If ten players are marauding through Outland and meet a “very well-known player and kill him immediately”, then in my opinion that has little to do with open-world PvP in principle. But so be it. If someone gets banned for this, that would really be a bit of a sparrow shot with a cannon. From my own experience with one or the other ban, however, I would say that such a reaction is rather unlikely. But I mix that with comments like “Its a PvP server there is no harrassment […] everything that is Horde vs Alliance is fine”, then I suspect a much more aggressive approach here. And even if something like this is not forbidden in black and white down to the smallest detail in some EULAs or ToS, Blizzard has probably made it very clear more than once that they no longer want something like that on their servers.
What do you think about such actions? Assuming everything that is said is true. Do you think ban penalties for targeted stream sniping (however one tries to find out) are justified? Or shouldn’t it matter if the “victim” is a famous streamer or not? And what about ganking, should that be punished on a PvP server as well? Write us in the comments!
Reference-www.buffed.de